Importance Of Marketing Environmental Analysis For The Body Shop

Overview of The Body Shop

The Body Shop International Limited is British perfumes skin care and cosmetics company which was started by Anita Roddick in the year 1976. She started the company by mixing her own products and altering the look with a new idea which could go a long way in assisting the business to perform well. Her vision is being followed by the company religiously and this has gone a long way in assisting the organization to become what it is today (Thebodyshop.com. 2018). The company has 2000 stores currently in 66 countries and more than 20000 customers work for the brand.

The Unique selling point about the company is that it looks out to send one of the finest and ethically sourced ingredients in order to create products which are natural in nature and tend to have a positive impact on the image of the company. The primary purpose of the brand is to enrich their products and help the planet. They run on a community trade program and are 100% vegetarian and have strong laws against animal testing. Primarily based in East Croydon and Hamptons, the company is currently owned by the cosmetics giant Natura. Earlier 2006 to 2017, the company was owned by L’Oréal and was sold to Natura in 2017 for a deal of £880 million.

For any company to be successful in the long run of the business, it is very crucial for it to ensure that it is successfully able to address the needs of the business environment and design the products accordingly (Lasserre 2017). The report follows a structured format whereby the external environmental factors relating to the Body Shop will be analyzed followed by the marketing mix strategy as adopted by the organization. The importance of understanding consumer needs shall also be highlighted.

Any business enterprise which is looking out to find success in the long term of the business needs to ensure that it follows and conducts a systematic conduct of the customers and their requirements. Understanding the needs, wants and demands of the customers is essentially crucial because of the given stated reasons.

The needs may be described as the basic demand as made by the different consumers and shall go a long way in helping the company to achieve its basic targets set if it is successfully able to fulfill the needs (Martinsuo 2013). The wants can be described as the product which is desired by the consumer. In case a company is able to fulfill the wants of the customers, it will be able to create a successful image of itself in the eyes of the consumers and uplift the image of the brand as well.

Understanding Customer Needs: Needs, Wants, and Demands

Lastly, the demands are the additional needs made by the consumers and in this case the consumer is willing to buy a need or a want then he or she can be stated to have a demand for the given need or the want.

In order for the business to be successful in the long run, it is crucial to understand the want of the customer and make their wants available (Boone and Kurtz 2013). An in depth knowledge is the main need which comprises of more than just knowing their age and incomes, but is also crucial to understand what their tastes and interests are.

The companies who possess knowledge about the needs and desires of the client tend to work towards customizing the experience of the customers and foster loyalty. In such a scenario, the customer feedback goes a long way in taking advantage to outwit the competitors and to build a strong consumer relationship.

It is popularly known that the Body shop Company follows and adopts a multilevel marketing network. This means that the company sells its products to the different consumers at the convenience of their homes. This program is known as the body shop direct and first began in Australia (Merat and Bo 2013). These customers were being targeted online by the company and understood that the target market needs to be set out clearly.

The company has witnessed massive growth and is present in more than 60 countries by offering a range of products which are more than 1200 in number. The company has followed a strategy of sustainable business relationships with the different communities and satisfies their needs in a fair method. The company has been able to successfully make a suitable business and has been able to convince the different customers to buy the natural products (Czinkota  and Ronkainen 2013).  In the late 1990s the company’s marketing strategy underwent a huge change and the company began to form a new positioning strategy as ell which helped it to fight its competition like that from Lush cosmetics.

Any organization does not function alone. It is a social entity and for this reason it is required to ensure that it assesses the external environment before it makes any changes in its operations. This is because the external environment of the business tends to comprise of various factors which can have a direct impact on the business. These factors may be of several types including Political, social, economic, technological, and legal and environment. Analyzing the marketing environment is very crucial for the business specially that of Body Shop because it assists in helping the company to analyze such factors which it can then incorporate in its strategy (Kalkan and Bozkurt 2013). A knowledge of these factors will assist the business in forming plans for the future of the organization.

The Body Shop Marketing Strategies: Multilevel Marketing and Sustainability

Body shop needs to be aware of the different trends in the beauty industry as well as their associated environmental impacts so as to ensure that it can try form strategies which will then assist them in combating against these strategies.

The analysis of the external environment of the business plays a key role in understanding what strategies would be best suitable for the organization and how the chosen organization will ensure that it has adequate preparation in order to deal with these factors (Johnson 2016). Given below are the Environment as well as social factors which might have an impact on the business operations of Body Shop:

The lifestyle of a consumer plays a crucial role in determining the products used by the customers and also contribute towards the understanding of whether the lifestyle guides the purchase or not. There have been various lifestyle changes like the increase in various environmental as well as social issues. The customers have become more conscious and hence, the customers want to make a conscious decision (Hair Jr and Lukas 2014). The customers generally make purchases from companies who have policies of sourcing products and different raw materials through fair trade and sustainability methods.

The environment and its welfare has become a growing source of concern for all the individuals and people present in the society as well. For this reason various environmental protection laws are passed down (Armstrong et al. 2015). There are various laws related to the testing of different products on various animals. Furthermore, there have been various laws related to the consumption of energy as well. Hence, the energy can be stated to be a useful concern and hence, a business like the Body shop needs to look out for these laws.

A competitor analysis can be described as a tool which is used by the business to analyze the different competitors as present in the organization. In the competitor analysis, the different factors with respect to which the consumers make decisions based on the different brands are analyzed effectively and the point of differentiation is identified (Malhotra and Peterson 2014). These different points of differentiation may be the number of stores which exists, prices at which the goods are sold and the benefits along with the quality of products being offered by the company.

Body Shop is facing severe competition from the Lush Company which functions on a similar business model as that of the former company. Understanding the success factors of the Lush brand will help Body Shop in improving its operations. Hence, the competitor analysis can be described as a relevant tool with respect to this and for this reason, it is quite relevant to the company.

Point of Distinction/ Company	Lush	Weleda	Yves Rocher
Number of Stores	The Lush brand has 105 stores in the United Kingdom and more than 900 stores in other 49 countries	The brand has 235 stores in total	There are more than 500 stores around the United Kingdom and in  France
Quality	Lush provides hand made products and it is one of the best brands available in the given industry (De Mooij 2013)	Provides good quality products to the different consumers.	There have been several complaints with respect to the quality of services as provided by the company.
Price	The prices are generally ranged quite high.	The prices are generally ranged quite high.	The prices are generally ranged quite high.
Benefits	The products of the company provide good benefits to the customers like good health and healthy skin.	The products of the company provide good benefits to the customers like good health and healthy skin.	The products of the company provide good benefits to the customers like good health and healthy skin.
Products Offered	The Lush brand tends to offer a wide range of products which cover skincare and body care as well.	The company provides just skin care products (Jarzabkowski and Kaplan 2015)	Only skin care products are available with the brand.
Social media presence	The company has a good social media presence.	The company has adequate social media presence	The company does not have a strong social media presence.
Market Position	The brand is the second most popular brand present in the country.	It’s the third most popular brand as present in the society.	It is not a very popular brand present.

External Environmental Factors: Importance of Marketing Environmental Analysis

Hence, from the given analysis the company needs to keep an eye out for the Lush Cosmetic brand. This means that the business model of Lush Cosmetics is highly similar to that of The Body Shop. Hence, The Body Shop needs to look out for the factors like the Quality of the products being offered, the Price of the products, the Social media presence and the marketing position of the brand.

Marketing strategy tends to play a crucial role in the business and it is very important for any business to ensure that its key Marketing Mix strategies are always in place. Given below is the marketing strategy of the company in the form of the 4ps (Hubbard, Rice and Galvin 2014).

It can be stated that the company is primarily based on the image of being healthy and very ecofriendly. A majority of the marketing of the company is done online after assuming the fact that environmentalists do not read the newspapers.

The product strategy being followed by the company are production of daily essentials with exclusive ingredients which increase the value of the goods. The products comprise of shaving, hair, face care, accessories, body and Eau de Toilettes (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014). The company engages in extensive research to understand the relationship between market and product demand. The company uses bigger packages and the customers have limited options to select from.

The process of the products at the Body shop are generally kept higher than its competitors because the goods being offered by the company are very unique. Hence, a premium pricing strategy has been applied. As the products are ethical and ecofriendly, the packaging as well makes the product price high. A differentiation prevails, the target market includes people who are stable financially and thus, the demand remains strong.

The Body shop has various outlets and makes a majority of its sales using the physical outlets. There exists a home scheme as well which assists in selling the products over the internet. The company has made a considerable online presence and as the channel is saturated, the clients find it easier to shop online (Ginter, Duncan and Swayne 2018).

Google ads, flyers and other creative channels like Periodicals are used to promote the products, Very often promotion also takes place through gifts and other gifts to certain female members.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the given analysis it can be stated that the Marketing Plan of a business is very crucial to its success and all businesses need to ensure that they market their products well in the chosen area. The report highlighted the importance of individual need, want and desire followed by the external environmental analysis. The third section discussed about the market strategy as adopted by the organization.

Hence, it can be stated that all the aspects of the business need to be reviewed carefully in order to ensure the business is able to prosper.

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.

Boone, L.E. and Kurtz, D.L., 2013. Contemporary marketing. Cengage learning.

Czinkota, M.R. and Ronkainen, I.A., 2013. International marketing. Cengage Learning.

De Mooij, M., 2013. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage Publications.

Ginter, P.M., Duncan, J. and Swayne, L.E., 2018. The Strategic Management of Healthcare Organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Hair Jr, J.F. and Lukas, B., 2014. Marketing research (Vol. 2). McGraw-Hill Education Australia.

Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning.

Hubbard, G., Rice, J. and Galvin, P., 2014. Strategic management. Pearson Australia.

Jarzabkowski, P. and Kaplan, S., 2015. Strategy tools?in?use: A framework for understanding “technologies of rationality” in practice. Strategic Management Journal, 36(4), pp.537-558.

Johnson, G., 2016. Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson Education.

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Lasserre, P., 2017. Global strategic management. Palgrave.

Malhotra, N.K. and Peterson, M., 2014. Basic marketing research. Pearson.

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Merat, A. and Bo, D., 2013. Strategic analysis of knowledge firms: The links between knowledge management and leadership. Journal of Knowledge Management, 17(1), pp.3-15.

Thebodyshop.com. 2018. The Body Shop® Nature Inspired Beauty. Never Tested on Animals. [Online] Available at: https://www.thebodyshop.com/ [Accessed 19 Jul. 2018].